It is a basic single way shock, the adjustment will effect all bump and rebound. More advanced shocks allow bump and rebound to be adjusted independently for different kinds of motion. Cheap adjustable dampers typically do not have notches, there's nothing wrong in this they should not move but setting the car up consistently is impossible without testing the dampers, which is obviously never going to be done by somebody who can't afford dampers with notches or during an event.
Monoshocks normally use a single coil over mounted in exactly the same place as a conventional contemporary single seater has its coils (see the first two pictures of your second link). The shock only works for bump so limits vertical travel but has no effect on roll. With a setup like this roll has to be taken account of seperately, if the lateral movement wasn't controlled the suspension rods/shock mountings would simply be ripped out of the car long before any large amounts of visible roll had occured. The anti-roll has to allow enough lateral movement to allow the right amount of roll, in reality I think this is just a very heavy undamped spring on our monoshock car.
Monoshocks have a few advantages, mainly that they allow independant adjustment of roll/bump, are much better for packing, reduce weight and potentially allow quicker/simpler adjustments (not always the case because the actual loadings through the system make it much harder to change shocks/adjust the anti-roll bar). The theory is that having dependant front (and occasionally rear) suspension is not a big issue for racing cars beacause the tracks are smooth enough to overcome the obvious drawbacks. Monoshock systems have gone out of fashion now though and most entry level single seaters have gone back to conventional two shock systems and third springs are now common to achieve a similar, but far more complicated result of independant bump/roll adjustment on semi-independant suspension.
Overall though I am really pleased to see nK actually properly models monoshocks, even if it allows you to remove components from the car :doh:
30-40 adjustment levels is pretty typical of none task specific cheap after market performance dampers. Better quality dampers tailored to track work will offer more variables but less levels of adjustability, it is far more useful to have to deal with 8 settings rather than 32 when changing dampers in a pit stop for example.
Damper settings can have a large effect on car handling, unlike in LFS changing spring stiffness isn't practical at a circuit and normally competition cars will run with a set of springs everywhere. Adjustment is instead achieved through changing the dampers and obviously for road use hard damping is undesirable on rough roads.
Damper settings can have a large effect on car handling, unlike in LFS changing spring stiffness isn't practical at a circuit and normally competition cars will run with a set of springs everywhere. Adjustment is instead achieved through changing the dampers and obviously for road use hard damping is undesirable on rough roads.
This is typical of why I hate nK, there used to be a perfectly good visual way of selecting a skin that made sense but he just had to remove it
Had a quick go with it. Found the multiplayer finally works on my computer at playable framerates, for the first time ever. Had a couple of races and found the general driving standard was non-existent, a couple of quick guys and everybody else all over the place. I started my first race from the pitlane, after being completely oblivious to the fact qualifying had finished and not spotted the little button to go to grid. These things are neither here nor there really, a confusing and illogical UI is off putting but not the end of the world and hopefully driving standards will get better as people learn it.
For some reason it no longer lets me use AA (with an 8800GT), which is annoying but not the end of the world. I also can't find how to change car skin anymore?
The most disappointing bit for me is the gear shifts, which have gone from being somewhat realistic to just iRacing style shove it in a gear and go. With autoclutch off and the actlabs profile activated I can put the FF1600 in any gear with any amount of load/throttle and it just changes without question, this is really strange and certainly is no way near as good as the behaviour in the old version and also doesn't seem to match other peoples stories of the patch. Should I be able to shift without touching the clutch pedal or lifting the throttle with autoclutch off in the FF1600?
For some reason it no longer lets me use AA (with an 8800GT), which is annoying but not the end of the world. I also can't find how to change car skin anymore?
The most disappointing bit for me is the gear shifts, which have gone from being somewhat realistic to just iRacing style shove it in a gear and go. With autoclutch off and the actlabs profile activated I can put the FF1600 in any gear with any amount of load/throttle and it just changes without question, this is really strange and certainly is no way near as good as the behaviour in the old version and also doesn't seem to match other peoples stories of the patch. Should I be able to shift without touching the clutch pedal or lifting the throttle with autoclutch off in the FF1600?
I loved this bit, what does frequent mean? It has taken over 2 years to get the game to a releasable state (assuming this finally is) so I'm not holding my breath.
That's a helpful comparison
Look back further though and go and drive anything with no powersteering, skinny tyres and a live rear axle and you'll soon realise what a proper car feels like to drive, and you have to drive it all the time, no sitting back and falling to sleep wrapped up in a sense of effortless safeness that modern cars try and do. In a car with direct feedback you'll feel what the wheels are doing (because it is so heavy nobody can fail to notice) and the car going light so shouldn't have the slide in the first place. I think people are missing the point, you shouldn't just be able to feel and drive the car in an emergency, you should feel and drive the car every second you are in it and as such are always on the ball. I wonder if you have you even driven a car without powersteering and ABS?
The car will always want to straighten itself up, don't fight it and you should easily be able to get the car under control and then take further evasive action if needed. Cars with power steering so no real feedback from the wheels are generally at a disadvantage because it can be more difficult to feel what the car wants to do and it is far easier for an inexperienced driver to cause issues by fighting the cars natural tendency to save itself.
You totally missed the point. Middle aged drivers will not effect the insurance premiums of a Corsa for a 17 year old. It is what others in the same age group that effects your insurance and unfortunately most of the cars involved in big claims are by stereotypical Corsa drivers, the stereotypical drivers effect your insurance premium and the statistics that influence them so you can't just say keep the stereotypes out. Thinking about it all the people I've know who have written cars off, sadly with cases involving serious injury and fatalities have almost exclusively been driving 106s, Corsas and Astras. Nearly all the incidents involving a sudden lack of talent with the young driver driving like a typical stereotypical idiot and entirely at fault, and it is really quite scary just how many young drivers and those unfortunate enough to be in close proximity of them get into big accidents.
Have you got a pair of axle stands and a trolley jack? If not get some and just find and no doubt easily fix the issue yourself.
Corsas are bought by brain dead idiots who then like to slap ridiculous bodykits on them under the illusion that they have created a performance car and that they can drive. Unfortunatley these tools tend to be the types who claim on insurance a lot when they run out of talent, therefore a young driver will struggle to insure a Corsa/106/Saxo/C2 because they are statistically far more likely to be driven by pillocks. To avoid high premiums go and get something unusual and avoid both high purchase costs and insurance, I did this by going and getting a Lada, purchase cost £350, insurance (with no NCB) £450. If you had gone to the insurance company and asked to insure a 1500cc RWD car with 5 link rear suspension they would probably have considered it far high a risk than a front wheel drive car, and it is IMO a lot more of a car and far more fun than the typical FWD car. Thing is though I doubt many young drivers have made big claims in 1994 Lada Riva estates so it comes up as being low risk and the insurance is suitably priced.
An E30 is a far better drivers car than an Accord anyday, despite being quite heavy they have got chassis balance and steering feel sorted which makes them far better road cars, not so good necessarily in standard form on the track though.
Sorry? Have you never seen a product of the British car industry?
Only just seen this, definitely interested, would have to be a weekend if in January though 
Surely as someone who is entering into professional career you realise the importance of regularly checking belts for failure, they age and by definition the belt in question has to be under high tension and take a lot of shock forces as well as getting damaged from external sources. If you don't automatically take a good look at all belts when you have them exposed and check the harder to get at ones regularly then how can you possibly say with confidence to yourself, let alone to a paying customer that you have performed a service and are happy with the vehicle?
What is your point the light weight cars, probably on smaller tyres and probably on brakes that aren't intended to be used cold stopped half a second faster than the overweight saloon. The only thing seriously impressive about that list is the Veyron, but it did have the assistance of enormous tyres and brakes and its air brake. Even the WRC car stops considerably quicker than the overweight gadget filled road cars, despite the fact that its brakes and tyres would have been absolutley hopeless cold.
I do not believe for a minute that this is possible if the Westfield didn't either have malfunctioning brakes or an absolute idiot driving. Even if it simply locked up and the driver made no attempt to brake properly a car with big tyres and downforce should be able to stop far quicker than a saloon weighing 3 times as much. Fully locked wheels will still stop a car pretty quickly, typically about 70% efficency of the absolute optimum, through in an obstacle and the weight/downforce/suspension/manual transmission of the sports racing car should will be no match for the saloon. Of course if the one car is driven appalingly (almost deliberately) badly then a car that doesn't require a driver will obviously be better.
Works fine for me in Firefox, my laptop is too slow to actually allow playback of this video though
Yes Schumacher has crashed cars with lots of electronics on them, on a race track... I don't think Schumacher needs electronic aids to drive a low powered hatch back down the road without crashing it.
Don't trust them, I know somebody who had the ABS decide he didn't want to brake on his (at the time nearly new) about 2005 Discovery, luckily he was an experienced driver and quickly recognised the fact he had total brake failure in time and was able to drive on the wrong side of the road to avoid the obstacle in question, simply having nothing happening when you touch the brake pedal is the single worst thing that can happen in a vehicle, pretty much any other mechanical failure or driver error will never lead to the same level of damage as brake failure. So if you ask me on a risk vs. benefit scale a system that deliberately causes the brakes not to engage when the driver presses the pedal is a very bad idea unless it is actually fail safe, which it clearly isn't. Issues with ABS systems offering reduced or no braking are not as uncommon as people think, in the GT cars I've worked on (using a production derived ABS system) we've always installed an emergency override/reset switch for when the ABS gets upset, which has been used.
Drivers should be training on the job all year round, by driving, if their cars are sufficiently disconnected that they don't actually have to drive them then they will be incapable of driving them when their computer fails them.
How hard can this be, in very simple terms if the issue is the car is oversteering you want to steer less, or the other way. This should come completely naturally if it doesn't then seriously learn to drive. I really don't understand how people naturally can't grasp this concept. I think power steering and generally disconnected car feel play a large part as well, just like introducing autos, ESP and ABS you take the effort away from driving, disconnecting the driver so much that he can think about something else entirely so when he gets in a flap he is barely connected with a car which gives rubbish feedback anyway. In contrast a car like mine with no power steering and an engine that requires lots of gearshifts (lovely and direct from a transmission mounted stick, another benefit of FR) to get anywhere and save a bit of fuel requires a fair amount of physical effort and lots of concentration to drive, exactly what keeps one ready for an emergency but unfortunately exactly what the majority of the most dangerous road users don't want.
If you really can't work it out car geometry will always be set so that the car will straighten up if you let go of the wheel. Often the fastest way to straighten a car up is to let go of the wheel, you'll often see drifters and occasionally racing drivers doing this, although it is not a natural reaction and certainly isn't what I would be thinking of doing when it all goes wrong.
I feel for you Kev up at 4am worrying about this every night for the last 3 years? 
Too fast for the conditions they were on? Yes. Too fast for the conditions they thought they were driving on? Maybe not. If you have X ray vision and can spot black ice everytime then maybe you can argue your point. Unless you literally drive at walking pace down any road that might have some ice on it you will be arriving at the danger point far faster than is safe if the car simply handles the situation for the driver then chances are he'll barely notice it and continue to drive at the same (probably law abiding but far too fast) speed next time when the computer won't save him.
Yeah on ice and snow my 80 year old granny just gets on with it and is perfectly able to control a car in bad conditions, unlike a majority of road users.
If your scared it is already to late, you should be far too busy dealing with whatever the problem is to actually be in anyway afraid or thinking of what will happen if you don't sort it out. If fear and panic should come after the danger has passed.
None of the aids fitted to modern cars really help in an emergency though, they're largely anti-idiot devices to stop the driver causing an accident when he tries to drive beyond his ability. Conventional ABS does nothing a well trained foot can't do, if drivers were required to take their tests in cars without ABS then they would be much safer in cars without it. Not to mention the fact that ABS is potentially lethal in winter conditions.
If that is an issue put some weight in the boot to change the weight balance and sit back and watch the front wheel drive cars getting stuck. A simple old rear wheel drive car with good ground clearance and correctly added ballast could give most soft roaders a run for their money when the going gets tough.
There is some basic theory on how to control a car in the UK theory test, but all too often you hear of new drivers who crash the first time they encounter oversteer (usually on ice), normally the explanation is they kept trying to counter the natural reaction of the wheel and force the car into a bigger mess by steering the wrong way, often coupled with an explanation that this is what they thought the driving theory test taught them. I don't really think it is good enough that the average new driver is incapable of controlling a car on the limit in a way that those who were used to driving unassisted rear wheel drive cars on poor quality roads just did automatically.
The public road is not a race track, and far too many people who can't handle basic car control do treat it as on. Driving law abidingly on the public road does not mean one can't suddenly be required to react to an unexpected change of conditions of the road surface or obstacles, if the initial reaction is panic and trying to remember theory of car control you are guaranteed to become closely friends with the obstacle in question. With some basic experience of driving a car at and beyond its limits the initial reaction may not be so hopeless, in the UK car control does not exceed pressing the brake pedal hard and coming to a computer controlled stop in a straight line on an empty piece of road. In other parts of Europe skid pans are compulsory and I'm sure fewer drivers fill in statements explaining how they used opposite opposite lock as a result.
Rear wheel drive cars should be much better than there front wheel drive counterparts in low traction conditions, if a driver can't cope with anything other than enormous understeer they shouldn't be on the road, although most rear wheel drive road cars will naturally understeer when they're not being provoked.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG